Tag Archives: aging

So I’ve seen a lot of lists/articles lately to the effect of “This Is What 39 Looks Like” and “Things That Are Better In The 40s vs. 20s”. The main point of the articles is to make us feel better about approaching 40 because we are fulfilled and emotionally secure and financially stable and all that. And I can get on board with that. What I cannot get on board is the “Oh I embrace my crow’s feet and I’m okay with my spider veins and I love my poochy stomach because I have my two wonderful kids to show for it,” train. Because no.

Don’t get me wrong, as “problems” go, this is not a big one. I am thankful for my health, that of my family and that I have a warm home to sleep in at night. My issue is looking at myself in the mirror everyday inside said home. To use one of my favorite phrases, “I don’t love it.” At all. Not even a little. And the most depressing part is, it isn’t going to get any better. It will only get worse, little by little each day.

I have never been one to hide the fact that I have had Botox and Filler and chemical peels spend too much money on special creams and face treatments. Sometimes I wonder if it is even doing any good. I wish I could have a time lapse photography to compare myself with all this effort, time and money that I am putting in to my other self who just washed her face and wore sunscreen. Is it all for naught?

And, thoughtful reader, you are probably saying to your screen, “Your not the only woman who has ever aged – get over it.” And right you are. The problem I need to figure out is how to get over it. How to embrace looking in the mirror each morning or liking photos of myself, knowing that I have been to the top of the mountain and it is only down here from here.

How does one “age gracefully”, not only on the outside, but the inside as well.

So here are some of my signs that 40 is waaaaay closer than 20.

I use a neck cream.

Have spent more money reversing sun damage than I probably ever spent on the vacations getting it.

My lips are shrinking at such rapid rate, there’s a chance they won’t be here by next Christmas.

I have to watch YouTube videos on how to apply makeup to aging skin.

Using the appropriate photo filter is more important than the composition of the picture.

I have to regularly sleep with a humidifier so that my hands don’t like like Miss Havisham.

What the coverup looks like has become waaaay more important than what the bathing suit looks like.

My hair is longer than it has been since high school, because I only have a few more years before long hair is not age appropriate.

Searching for promotions on Botox and Filler is like a second job.

I now belong to a gym for the first time in my life in a desperate attempt to keep the number on the scale from continuing to creep up.

Of course I always have been a glass is alllllmost empty kind of person…..